The four-wheel drive stopped in the compound. Through the tinted windows I could see a fearsome dog straining at its chain and baying at the vehicle. Its fur was the same muddy yellow color as the sandy soil beneath its feat and the packed earth walls of the farmhouse buildings. A rickety wooden door in one of the walls opened slowly, as if commanded by a magic cipher, and a woman stepped out. She was the same shape and color as a boiled potato, and she motioned for us to come inside. We filed into the central hall and were served lunch.

Could returned servicemen with war-ravaged hearts and minds soon be given MDMA to smooth their way back into society? Is using MDMA for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) a legitimately good idea, and is it ever going to be common practice? ImportantCool spoke to Dr Stephen Bright of Curtin University to learn more about this Huxley-esque development.

For all I know, by the time this book is published my view of the Soviet régime may be the generally-accepted one. But what use would that be in itself? To exchange one orthodoxy for another is not necessarily an advance. The enemy is the gramophone mind, whether or not one agrees with the record that is being played at the moment.

A Libyan man, with his son in the background, holds part of a rocket fired by forces loyal to Gaddafi that blew holes through three walls of his house.

There is an overwhelming consensus among Western pundits, on the Left and Right, that the conflict in Libya was “a disaster”. The consensus goes beyond that too. It includes the view that the conflict was, first and foremost, a campaign led by the United States aimed at toppling a hostile government, and that this US adventurism had disastrous consequences for the US, the region, and most of all for the people of Libya. It’s a line of attack that shortcuts past the need for any factual detail by using the phrase “regime change” to invoke the memory of Iraq and associating any opponents with that war – even if they, like me, were vocally against it at the time. Continue reading →

Archivists and other professional record keepers are an interesting bunch. Widely regarded as quiet people who are respectful of authority and rules, the stereotypes usually have us laboring away in basements, always dusty, and probably wearing a cardigan. Not typically courageous, and unlikely activists. However, both the archivist/record keeper [1] “type” and the work itself are, in reality, a lot more interesting. We have a unique view of the world of information – the 21st century’s most important currency – and our work is inherently political. In many of the jobs we do, we have agency or at least influence in matters of policy, record keeping systems design, the retention and findability of records, and records access. These are not trivial matters, in politico-social terms. Records – in all their forms – enable and leave traces of what governments, corporations, and individuals do. They can be created in order to repress or to free, to nurture or to attack. They can be shared in order to heal, or withheld in order to deceive. Records and record-keeping support affect myriad aspects of the lives of individuals and can influence the direction of a whole society. Continue reading →